COLONIAL AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 249
concerned in the struggle. He judged European politics
purely from the standpoint of a nineteenth-century English-
man.
For these reasons every student of the reigns of Jarnes 11
and William III is obliged to seek an account of their
foreign policy in the pages of other historians. There are
many monographs by foreign writers dealing with particu-
lar parts of the subject* though few Englishmen have done
anything to elucidate it. There are also some general his-
tories of the period. Onno Klopp's Fall of the House of
Stuartl contains a detailed exposition of the negotiations
and diplomatic intrigues of the time, based on English as
well as foreign archives. But the best introduction to the sub-
ject is Leopold von Rankers History of England,2 and it is
also the best corrective of Macaulay.
It has been well said that Ranke would scarcely have de-
voted over a volume to the period treated by Macaulay,
merely to add a little new information here and there or
correct some errors in the details. He must have believed
that there were faults in Macaulay*s representation of
events which made it worth while to tell the story over again.
There is a closer connection between the two works than a
casual reader suspects. Though Ranke hardly ever men-
tions Macaulay, there are many indirect references to his
book. Sometimes they are unmistakable. For instance, in
commenting upon the attacks of James 11 on the constitu-
tion Ranke says: * We do not consider ourselves authorised
to adopt the tone which English historians have borrowed
1 Vols. iii and iv deal with the reign of James ; vols. v-ix with that of
William. Klopp is as strongly pro-Austrian as Macaulay is the opposite.
2 Englische Geschichte, vomehmHch im sechzehnten und siebzefanten
Jahrhundert (7 vols.; 1859-68), The English translation in six volumes
was published at Oxford in 1875. It is divided into 22 books, of which
books xvii to xxi deal with the reigns of James and William.